“Whew! it’s finally done!” Kraft heaved a heavy sigh as he pressed the ‘simulate’ button in the Dungeon Maker to let the software he created run in the background while he stretched his body a little. Rex’ ability boost had proved to be of a significant help for Kraft as he and the System enabled the Original Bellator to penetrate the Deep Web and into the Dark Web of the internet. This was because in order to gain access into the restricted cyber database which the Chinese government had placed, Kraft first needed to gain some knowledge about the latest possible ways to hack.
Usually, traversing into the Dark Web was like going into a deep shaft mine without a canary to check for possible signs of poisoning in the atmosphere. However, Kraft had the skills to do that with his eyes closed though this time around, he was not there to merely poke around the Dark Web. Instead, the sly old fox had something more sinister in mind. He was going to infiltrate the lowest depths of the Dark Web or as hackers nicknamed it, the Abyss Web.
Ironically, it was Kraft who placed the groundwork for that before sending out a challenge on the Dark Web for other elite competent hackers to try and crack the code. All those who read about the challenge determined to use this opportunity to join in the fun. It took roughly about three years before Kraft’s code was broken.
The top hacker who did that managed to find out the hidden objective of Kraft and remodified it to become a forum for the best of the best hackers. (He gained the infamous title of Conqueror of Fox Wall by accomplishing this feat.)
However, when the hackers cracked his code, Kraft was already staying within Ming, laying domain. That was also when the world wide web was just an expansion from a small group of governmental users, especially from the various defence departments in the world which Kraft took an active part in it. That was the reason why Kraft, who was knowledgeable in counter intelligence was among the first few to dabble into it and helped expand the project.
It happened when the System User back then had the foresight to infiltrate into the intelligence and defence departments of the Chinese government to gain an advantage over the Twelve Royal Zodiac Clans. Kraft, at the time had been successful in placing a monitoring device of sorts on the clans. It proved to be very vital in information collecting since the User and System collated plenty of data on the Zodiac Clans which they would had never known in the past.
He even managed to marginalise a victim (as what he had done recently) for the crimes of monitoring the Twelve Royal Zodiac Clans. The User did learn about it and eventually assisted in compensating that particular family by matchmaking the victim’s son to a daughter of the Royal Zodiac Snake Clan. (Of course, behind the scenes.)
And that victim was none other than Hou Fei’s father.
Kraft had been like a hidden guardian angel for him because it was the User’s command to take care of the victim’s son and subsequent family members until they were able to stand on their own. So, Ming having met Hou Fei in the army was no mere coincidence, but it was something Kraft had orchestrated behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, after the time reversal incident, Kraft had not been able to actively access the net because of the need to conserve his energy to assist Ming whenever he felt like it. There was also a personal reason why the original bellator decided to follow Ming rather than stay enclosed within the System who had entered a full dormant state after the time reversal.
Kraft had been afraid the System would repeat the same mistake it did in choosing a person that had intents and actions similar to the Panda Lord Zhou Lin. Ever since Kraft re-joined the System, he made sure to gather sufficient resources under his name in case of such a worst case scenario.
While the System was aware of Kraft’s doings, it did not stop him because the Original System’s judgement had been flawed at a time when it had been at its peak. Thus, the current System knew that depending on the circumstances, it might have to resort to such an option once more.
Also, despite the System’s pledge to enhance its logical thought process, Kraft inherently knew that the System’s processing capability was being reduced with every User it blessed. The fact that, up till now, only two Users managed to help it recover some of its power proved that most Users it chose had never been very successful at all.
Some squandered them away by wanting to become the top cultivator in the world, which most often lead to their own demise along the way while others preferred to just live their lives comfortably without too many complications.
The System had been desperate for a decent User for a long time until it met Ming. Jin’s grandfather ought to be the candidate with the most potential within his generation. It was precisely what the System had been looking for despite his equivalent (foolish?) desires to be the best cultivator in the world.
Hence, the System had decided to invest everything it had onto Ming, giving him the best training resources possible and aiding his quest to reach Grade 20. However, problematic issues arose when the Banned Emperor assassin killed his daughter, which ultimately broke his will and thoughts, causing him to do suicidal things.
Therefore, the System decided to abandon Ming in order to conserve whatever process capability it had left after the time reversal, and that was when Kraft jumped into Ming. Kraft could have assisted a Sub System User like Grandma Yuan, but he decided to do something to amend his past regrets.
Kraft blamed himself for retrieving remains of the Panda Lord and Rex at the cost of the many lives of his dear friends and comrades including his fiancée. He felt that it had been partially his fault to have let Panda Lord Zhou Lin rampage on his path of destruction. That and the desire of empty revenge for the multiple deaths of the Panda Clan Remnants back when Panda Lord Zhou Lin had been the User for the System.
So, when the time reversal happened, Kraft guided Ming when no one else could. Jin’s grandfather had been depressed and suicidal thoughts made him believe ending his life would solve everything.
Fortunately, he decided against it, as there was still a little Jin to take care of.
Nevertheless, it felt like a living hell seeing everyone around him proceed as per usual. Hou Fei and Grandma Yuan did show some concern, but Ming always acted strong in front of them. That resulted in them not knowing what was occurring inside of him and they even thought that he had turned over a new leaf.
However, Kraft knew what was happening and stay with him, encourage him (albeit in the form of a little sarcastic subconscious) and aided him to pull through.
Ming realised and understood where he had gone wrong and taught Jin whatever he could despite how busy he could be at times. In the meantime, his career skyrocketed with the aid of Kraft and Hou Fei supporting him.
There had been times that Grandma Yuan did pull a string or two secretly for Ming to rise to the top and he was extremely grateful for it even though both of them did not show it to each other.
——
“The malware works with a 100% success rate in the simulation. Original Bellator Kraft’s assistance to dive into the Abyss Web has proven to be very insightful.” The System thanked Kraft for breaking into the Abyss Web and getting all the information including the various types of malwares and hacks for the System to analyse.
Kraft was able to infiltrate into the Abyss Web due to a hidden backdoor he placed in his code when he allowed the others to crack it open. After all, when inviting all sorts of folk into one’s house, why not have a second pair of keys in case he needed one?
“Duh, you definitely have to thank me. I had to isolate all those malware codes to prevent them from infecting you when you were analysing them. But the most valuable player is no doubt Rex. There were two! Two secret deep root malware codes which I could not have detected without Rex’s ability boost.” Kraft emphasised as he remembered how merciless the System had been when it placed Rex back into solitary confinement via that odd Rubik’s cube prison when the ten minutes was up.
“…System has taken Original Bellator Kraft advice into account. System shall provide better food for Rex as compensation.”
“You better make sure to take note of that!” Kraft said as he glanced through the simulation results of the malware that had undergone the test run. With the knowledge he snatched from the Abyss Web, the System and him had been toiling through the hours to perfect the malware they were going to insert into the National Database.
Like every infamous malware ever made, the System and Kraft named the malware virus – ‘Foxy’. What was special about Foxy was that the System injected a part of its artificial intelligence coding into Foxy’s code structure.
Still, Kraft made a plethora of contingency plans ensuring that the System’s code would disintegrate if someone managed to try and isolate and analyse the code structure of Foxy.
Other than that, the malware was loaded with all the latest weapons of mass cyber destruction. Like an assassin, it’s able to blend itself into its surrounding, preventing others from detecting it and smart enough to gather any information it could grab.
After which, it would lie in wait, analysing the target’s structure until there was a loophole for Foxy to exploit. It might take time for the Foxy malware to work, but it was guaranteed to breach through any firewall silently on Earth.
However, Kraft needed to enter as soon as possible since the security administrators probably had already detected the breach in their database when the System had queried about Ryuli. The Chinese government might not be able to patch the loophole immediately, but they would get it done as soon as possible, best case scenario they would have about four to five days. (In addition, it was to wait for the hacker to act again so they can confirm their catch.) That was also why Kraft and System worked to the bone to smuggle in their malware before that window of opportunity would be gone forever.
“Now, let’s get this baby fox to work,” Kraft spoke as the System queried about Ryuli once more, sending another alert out. Kraft had previously instructed Tsu and Kai to track down that particular cybercriminal which he shifted the blame to and happily learned that he had not been caught yet.
So, Kraft was going to use the same trick. Besides after a bit of research, the counter intelligence agent had found out that the criminal was working for an underground syndicate that dealt with human trafficking. The crafty fox believed he would do the world a favour by ensuring someone like him would rot behind bars as soon as possible and not just stay on the watchlist.
This time around Kraft managed to isolate the alert ping within one of the System’s own virtual routers for which he already simulated the settings of the government’s internal database on to it. Hence, there was no way it could come back to haunt Jin.
When the ping was isolated, Kraft injected the malware code into the ping, while also changing the digit of the IP address, elaborately switching several international routers’ address so as to ‘mask’ the address of the criminal he wished to incriminate. After which, he released the alert back into the wild and waited for time to pass.
But it did not take long for a returned ping by the malware who was connected to the System to respond. “Holy smithereens. What the hell is this!?!” Kraft saw what was inside the hidden national database when Foxy sent a sneak preview of the list of data that were inside there.
Of course, there was the usual scandalous information about the politicians, among the royal Zodiac Clans as well as a certain terror crime watchlist etc. But what made Kraft surprised when he should be immune to all these issues after living for hundreds of years was that there was a file listed ‘Surviving Panda Clan Members’ as well as “Possible Relatives to Fox Clan.” Both of which were an interest to Kraft for particular reasons of the past.
“Damn it, we cannot command Foxy to gather what we desire, we just have to wait until the information comes in.” Kraft regretted not designing it, but a remote control option had a risk of being detected. Meanwhile, he also analysed the firewall which the hidden national database was using.
It was out of the world and according to the knowledge he acquired from Abyss Web, it seemed that it was even more advanced than what Israel, Germany and US were using for their database protection combined. If those western countries were tp describe their defences as an impenetrable firewall, China was literally using the Great Wall of Fire. Kraft sighed when he also noticed that the sneak preview list had an existing watchlist for the Banned Emperor Assassins.
“At the very least, they are not oblivious to their existence.” Kraft knew that all he needed to do was wait even though it was the most excruciating thing he could do right now.
“I guess I could watch Jin’s fight while waiting for the time to pass so, so slowly.” Kraft sat down and leaned back in the Dungeon Maker to enjoy the fights.
“Still, I am interested in the Nine Tailed Fox Demon Cultivator. It’s time for a well deserved break anyway. Shall we find out how the foxes of this generation fare?” Kraft invited his companions over, and the System teleported a penguin carrying a plate of tonkatsu curry rice for Kraft and the others to partake. (Evon grabbed two pieces before Kraft even had a taste of it!)
